08 Critical Evaluation of Published Research Flashcards
proper attitude towards science articles is:
skepticism
why skepticism?
probabilistic, provisional nature of science; investigating complex phenomena; ethical/economic constraints to desired lvls of control
what is aim of critical evaluation?
identify strengths/weaknesses of research publication, ensure patients receive assessment and treatment based on best evidence
inadequacies in intro point to:
research erroneously conceived, poorly planned
critical evaluation fo methods will reveal:
overall internal/external validity
internal validity
ability attribute differences / changes observed to independent variable
external validity
extent to which results can be generalized to other samples/situations
sample size is important for:
statistical power
for subjects need to consider:
sampling model, sample size, description of sample
adequacy of design depends on”
control for extraneous influences, control for alternative explanations of data
control groups used for:
controlling for extraneous effects
subject assignment important in ____ studies
quasi-experimental, naturalistic comparison
treatment parameters need to:
describe all treatments to diff groups, have same intensity and applied equally by diff personnel
Rosenthal ___ and Hawthorne ____ effects
bias; expectancy
considerations for setting?
describes sufficiently to evaluate generalizability, has implications for external validity
need to consider times of treatments and observations cuz;
clearly indicate sequence of treatment/observations, variability in times can affect internal validity, control for/consider series effects? (pretests)
discussion draws ___ from dataa
inferences
what is type 2 error:
miss of effect
limitations of descriptive/inferential stats?
correlation not equal causation, type 2 error, small “n”
data from sample should only be generalized to:
that population
when considering statistical/clincal significance:
size of effect, side effects, cost effectiveness, value of outcome
what is theoretical significance?
relates results to previous relevant findings in logical way to literature
what is a review:
critical summary of literature and implications
what is meta-analysis:
systemic procedures to summarize overall implications of set of papers
how to review/evaluate lit.:
1) identify relevant lit.
2) evaluate critically key pepers
3) identify patterns of findings in lit
4) identify crucial disagreements/controversies
5) propose valid explanation for disagreements
two main strategies for summarizing findings from multiple papers;
quantitative and qualitative
condense results from several papers into single statistic (represent average effect size)
quantitative
tabulate key features of related publications (compare design, subjects, measures)
qualitative
qualitative comparison enables emergence of:
pattern (or conflict–explanation leads to hypotheses)
writing adequate lit review requires:
knowledge of research design, msmts, stats, understanding of health sci
